Gamers roll their eyes as new Call of Duty shooter offers option to be a ‘non-binary war criminal’
The gender inclusivity feature in the new Call of Duty military shooter game raised quite a few gamer eyebrows, allowing non-binary characters to take part in the war-crime-filled black ops of the Ronald Reagan era.
The oh-so descriptively named ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’ was released on Friday, and players instantly noticed a new feature for the series – the ability to pick a ‘non-binary’ option while creating your character.
Call of Duty Cold War let’s you pick non-binary as your gender. That’s right. pic.twitter.com/Tqj8S5rLPa
— Lawman Presents (@xlawmanx) November 13, 2020
As the game’s title suggests, the virtual soldier codenamed ‘Bell’ – who now can be a non-binary character – would then have to take part in extrajudicial covert operations against the Soviet Union in the early 80s.
The identity politics spin placed on historically controversial military practices seemed off to some gamers, who immediately ridiculed the entire concept. “Just made my non-binary war criminal character in the new CoD. Hell Yeah,”quipped one of them. “Finally being seen,” one non-binary person sarcastically tweeted.
You can commit war crimes as a non-binary person on the new call of duty ♥️
— Kenneth Kaniff from Connecticut (@yungPCnotebook) November 13, 2020
goosebumps puppet reagan will personally order you to do non-binary war crimes in call of duty, 10/10 video game of the year pic.twitter.com/m2NXlzZCQc
— lilith \m/ (@deathcarpets) November 13, 2020
The new Call of Duty lets you use non-binary interrogation techniques like they did at abu ghraib
— dr. jill 🦃 (@ImBeingCalm) November 13, 2020
Some players, however, thought that Call of Duty’s inclusivity option was an “important” move in the right direction.
It’s important to include Non-Binary. Biological Male and Female isn’t enough.#CallOfDutypic.twitter.com/s675Q47rvT
— Add your name (@tejasreaper) November 13, 2020
@CallofDuty thank you for the #Nonbinary option on #ColdWar#Equality#SmallSteps become #LargeStrides#MarchOnpic.twitter.com/Dm110pXC6Q
— Christine Hazel (@CheezyMcSqweezy) November 13, 2020
A certain section of virtual veterans, however, were quite displeased with the ‘non-binary’ feature. Alas, not many of their comments were profanity-free.
Probably some glitch they will patch it soon hopefully
— Tropicaljuice (@Tropicaljuice5) November 12, 2020
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